Poll of players: Rex Ryan is NFL’s most overrated coach

Posted by Michael David Smith on November 6, 2012, 3:33 PM EDT

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NFL players are not impressed with what they’ve seen of Jets coach Rex Ryan.

In a poll of 103 players on 27 teams conducted by Sporting News, Ryan was the runaway winner on the question, “Who is the most overrated head coach?” Ryan was named by 35 players, more than twice as many as the No. 2 choice, New England’s Bill Belichick, who had 16 votes.

“Some of the things he does in front of the cameras are way over the top,” said one unnamed player who voted for Ryan. “You put that with the New York media and he has a pretty big reputation, I guess. I don’t even know if you’d call him overrated anymore because it’s gonna be a couple of years since he was in the AFC finals.”

After Belichick came Philadelphia’s Andy Reid with nine votes, Washington’s Mike Shanahan with eight votes and Pittsburgh’s Mike Tomlin with four votes. Jeff Fisher, Jim Harbaugh and Norv Turner got three votes apiece, Pete Carroll, Jason Garrett and John Harbaugh got two votes apiece, and six coaches who received one vote each.

Since when does The Sporting News have any credibility? Few realize it even exists anymore. That being said, the poll would make more sense as a poll of peers: other coaches. Who seriously thinks that players have any idea what makes a good coach from their outside perspective.

Funny how other than Rex and Andy all of the other coaches have all won multiple Super Bowls and Andy has has several seasons of playoff teams in the past , seems like many players are jealous of winners …..

I’m a die hard Dolphins fan so that should speak volumes about how I feel about the Jets. However, Rex made it to 2 AFC title games with Mark freakin Sanchez at QB, he’s gotta being doing something right. He’s also managed to have a top defense without anything that resembles a pass rushing OLB on his team. Ryan isn’t a likeable guy to opposing teams but he’s a damn good defensive football coach.

To all you Pats fans, the reason Belichick was on the list is for a supposed defensive genius, his defense is a joke. Oh, and his personnel moves (draft picks, trades, free agent signings) have been pretty bad lately.

I don’t really think Rex is a bad coach, he just opens himself up for critisim with all the talking he does. He’s basically setting his team up for failure by guaranteeing a Super Bowl win every year. Its one thing to have confidence in your team and another to place so much pressure on them that if they don’t live up to expectations, they’re failures.

Belichick is not an overrated coach. That aside they should do a list of the most underrated coaches headlining Mike Smith at number 1!
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Really? How many playoff games has Smith won? How many Super Bowls?

I’m a Packer Fan and I think the other
Smith, Lovie, should be mentioned as an underrated coach. Bears have the worst, most pernicious ownership in the league, yet have been competitive every year since he’s been HC.
That is except for last year when Cutler was on IR for most of the season.

flash1283 says:
Nov 6, 2012 3:48 PM
This is stupid, they polled a total of 103 players on from 27 teams.

There are over 2000 players in the NFL.

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Oh, boy. Another genius post. It’s called a “poll”. You know it’s like those things they use to determine who might be president or which flavor bbq sauce we prefer. They don’t have to ask all 300 million of us to get a good idea of what those answers are. Community college might be a good first step for you.

Funny that except for Ryan most of those coaches are winners. I am not sure what player said it last year that he made some bold statement like coaches don’t matter its the players. With that in mind how many of these Einsteins would have Sean Payton on the list this year if he was coaching. You know Sean they guy who coached that Superbowl team and got suspended and now his team is close to getting a top 10 pick in the draft next year.

These polls mean nothing. Players do not know who the top coaches are or who the top players are. It is more valuable than polling the general public since they understand the game better, but not much so. Players are influenced by the media just as the general public is.

patsfanvt says:
Nov 6, 2012 4:52 PM
These polls mean nothing. Players do not know who the top coaches are or who the top players are. It is more valuable than polling the general public since they understand the game better, but not much so. Players are influenced by the media just as the general public is.

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It’s a “player’s poll” and called exactly that. That means that it was meant to gauge players’ (SPECIFICALLY players’) opinions. They could do the same thing among fans, or among children, or among death-row inmates, etc.. Nobody asserted that polling players was the best way to accurately determine who the most overrated coach is. Critical thought is truly dead in this country.

I always find these polls useless. I’ve seem them for other sports and the answers aren’t really who is overrated, it usually who seems overexposed and maybe dislike from their media apperances. I mean the quote “Some of the things he does in front of the cameras are way over the top” – what he does in the camera has nothing to do if is a good coach or even an overrated coach.

This is the dumbest thing yet. Overrated means they are not as good as their ratings indicate. Overrated compared to WHAT? Since there are no official (or unofficial) ratings referenced, how can anyone be overrated?

hooterdawg says:
Nov 6, 2012 3:40 PM
Since when does The Sporting News have any credibility? Few realize it even exists anymore. That being said, the poll would make more sense as a poll of peers: other coaches. Who seriously thinks that players have any idea what makes a good coach from their outside perspective.

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Oh, goodness. How is an NFL player a reasonable judge of who is and isn’t a good NFL coach? I’m not going to even bother responding to your inane question. You have no hope for intelligence.

To all you Pats fans, the reason Belichick was on the list is for a supposed defensive genius, his defense is a joke. Oh, and his personnel moves (draft picks, trades, free agent signings) have been pretty bad lately.
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It is admittedly early to include players like Wilson and Dennard, but all fourteen of those players have started games this year. That list doesn’t even include solid contributors like Jermaine Cunningham, Brandon Deaderick, Myron Pryor, and so on.

Of course there have been some picks that didn’t pan out, most noticeably in the secondary, but show me any team that hasn’t had their share of bad picks – especially with the multitude that the Patriots have every year.

As for free agency and trades, you’re clearly swayed by high profile additions that didn’t work out like Haynesworth and Chad Johnson. How about Leigh Bodden, who greatly aided the defense when healthy? Rob Ninkovich, one of the better defensive players for the Pats the last two years? Kyle Love and Ryan Wendell, undrafted free agent acquisitions that are now solid contributors on each line? Brian Waters, who made the Pro Bowl?

randallflagg52 its so funny with out Brady he is nothing the same coach that got bounced out of clev. Not a master mind just lucky also three quarters of those guys you mentioned are A a product of playing with Brady or B would not start on a good D any where in t he league except maybe the Raiders.

tbd3,
If you were trying to prove something with that list of recent draftees, you only reenforced my belief that the Pats have been at best average drafters. Starting games does not mean that they were good draft picks. McCourty is a great example. 1st round pick who starts because they’ve blown all their other DB picks. Most teams start all kinds of players that they drafted. You can’t start a team full of free agent signings. If you want to see how a good set of drafts look, see the Texans drafts 2006 onwards.

seeing mike tomlin’s name pop up here made me realize that there are only a handful of coaches who could even be considered for this dubious title. i mean, seriously, most coaches aren’t even ‘rated’ so how could they be ‘overrated? can you accuse any of the following coaches as being ovverated?: pat shurmur, marvin lewis, mike munchak, chuck pagano/bruce arians, mike mularkey, gary kubiak, dennis allen, john fox, romeo crennel, chan gailey, joe philbin, ken whisenhunt, joe vitt, greg schiano, ron rivera, leslie frazier, lovie smith, jim schwartz, or jason garrett? i mean, none of them have really ever accomplished anything so nobody will ever accuse any of them of being “overrated.” none of them have ever done anything worthy of praise so nobody is going to play the “overrated” card on any of ’em.

this poll is nonsense. 3 of the top 4 have appeared in multiple super bowls and each have won at least one. and the other one, reid, was a mainstay in the conference title game and even coached in a super bowl.

with that said, i think belichik and shanahan have had the luxury of having two of the greatest quarterbacks in nfl history turn them from mediocre coaches into “geniuses.” we’ve seen little from shanahan B.E. or A.E. i expect more of the same if belichik sticks around A.T.B.

Not sure why Jim Harbaugh is in there. 20-6 since coming to the NFL and he totally turned the 49ers around instantly with pretty much the same personel from the year before he got there. What’s over rated? The fact that he didn’t go to and win the Super Bowl his first year coaching a team that hadn’t had a winning record in 8 years before he got there? Please! Those 3 people are idiots.

randallflagg52 its so funny with out Brady he is nothing the same coach that got bounced out of clev. Not a master mind just lucky also three quarters of those guys you mentioned are A a product of playing with Brady or B would not start on a good D any where in t he league except maybe the Raiders.
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You do realize that Belichick took the Patriots to 11-5 without Brady in 2008, with that Hall of Famer they have in Kansas City now …… right?

You know, the whole topic of who has made the Pats dominant is really a fascinating study.

On the one hand, no one is every going to say that Brady is anything other than a first ballot HOF player. Arguably, based on stats alone, he’s potentially one of the best to have ever played the game.

But on the other hand, when he went down for the entire season, the pats went a very convincing 11-5 with Cassel at the helm. Clearly, as evidenced by his play (or lack thereof) in KC, Cassel was most certainly NOT the reason the Pats did so well in Brady’s absence. Much of that credit simply must be given to Bellycheat.

Conversely, with Shanahanahanan, there is little doubt that his two rings are a result of Elway’s level of play. The guy could never win a playoff game again, without number 7. He’s also proving to be just as big a flop in DC. Even with his new prized QB, the Skins are still a loathsome loser of a team.

georgeremus says:
Nov 6, 2012 4:09 PM
Belichick is overated because he hasn’t won anything since Spygate. It’s easy to win when you cheat.

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I guess if you consider the best record in the NFL, 2 AFC Championships, and 2 Eli final minute drives away from 2 more rings with a completely new team and significantly worse defense than he had from 2001-2004 not winning anything, than yea.

27 other teams haven’t won a Super Bowl since “spy-ESPN-created-story-gate”

According to a survey of 50 fans that never viewed or attended a football game in their life, it was concluded that Rex is a relatively unknown commodity n0t worthy of mention.

So there ya have it folks all wrapped up in one neat little bundle. The survey participants had to be bribed into participating with jello shots of vodka and orange juice presented to them in relatively frequent intervals.

I’m not a fan of Belichick or Ryan, but c’mon! This shows me how little the players know about coaching. Belichick has 3 Super Bowls on his resume. Regardless of “Spygate”, which was overblown. And Rex Ryan, has taken his team to two AFC Championship games in 3 seasons, and has never had a losing record. Maybe he’s not a great coach, but overrated? I don’t hear people talking about how great a coach Ryan is. So who’s overrating him? Belichick’s 3 rings are enough to say he’s not overrated. The fact that he hasn’t won another ring just shows how difficult it is to do so. Belichicks’ taken his team to 5 Super Bowls and won 3. That takes great coaching plus great players. Not just one or the other.